


Dr. Faust and “Nurse” M

by dianamolloy



Series: Adam and his nurses [2]
Category: Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dianamolloy/pseuds/dianamolloy
Summary: Nurse Kat is moving and Adam needs to find alternative methods to remain fed. Enter Mara, a friend of Kat in her mid-30’s with financial problems who has no intention of being called a ‘zombie’.
Relationships: Adam (Only Lovers Left Alive) & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Adam and his nurses [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116971
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Dr. Faust and “Nurse” M

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justthehiddles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justthehiddles/gifts).



> There is a mention of Covid in the first paragraph, it’s brief but I wanted to warn for it anyway.

  
It had been six years, one pandemic and a less sure footed new world since Adam had met Kat, the nurse who’d provided him blood since then. From her own veins even once the hospital shortage had ended, once people felt safe to be outside. To hug. To kiss. People, not Adam. Adam kept his distance from them all and ventured outside only to collect his monthly rations or to drive at illegal speeds when far enough away from the city. 

“I’m moving,” that’s what she had said by way of greeting when he reached the agreed meet-up spot on a side street near the subway entrance she took her train home from work.

”To?” he queried, knowing it was a delay and wondering why was it his fucking luck was always running out.

“Too far,” she’d said with a shake of a head and handed over the flask with a toss which he caught with ease and handed over the folded hundreds that added up to two-thousand dollars whole Kat explained that she would be gone in six weeks.

”Right. Well I’ll see you next month for one more visit,” he turned to leave, boots crunching the loose gravel underfoot.

”I have a replacement in mind.”

The replacement Adam had found out was thirty-four year old Mara. Not a nurse but hospital staff doing clerical work and an old friend, one with absolutely no medical training.

”how the fuck is this meant to work?” Adam had bitched after meeting Mara later that week.

”I’ll show her what to do. Meanwhile you can spring for a phlebotomy course.”

“This is a terrible plan.”

It was but unless Adam wanted to go back to finding someone to bribe, who was trustworthy or rather bent enough to do it, not bent enough to cause trouble he was fresh out of options. Four and a half weeks later he was back at the same location and Kat was beside a short, black-haired woman.

The first time they met Mara had said ‘fuck you’ to Adam and walked off, with a backwards yell of “you were right he is a rude asshole.”

The second time, a week later to allow tempers to cool, Adam had been the one to leave in a strop. A bigger one than his usual demeanour.

  
The third was only days after and a day before Kat’s move. She had invited Adam to Mara’s house in Queens and told them both if either of them pitched another fit Mara would be unable to earn the money she wanted to get out of debt and train to be a nurse and Adam would be left without a blood bag. Almost word for word. Then told them to get on, kissed her friend on the top of her head and gave Adam a short wave.

Around five minutes passed while they were in silence. 

“I apologise for my rudeness,” Adam finally broke it, begrudgingly.

”I probably shouldn’t have called you an asshole. But don’t call me a zombie again.”

That became the start of the second nurse in Adam’s life.

And four years later when he rang the bell on the first of the month the way he always did and she opened it, they both smiled and were genuinely pleased to see each other. Having been forced to see Mara as a person not an inconvenient zombie had rubbed some of the roughness he felt, toward her at least if not the entire species. Adam still hated the bloody lot of them en masse, and on occasion himself for wishing he had never been turned into something else. At least when you were all in the shit you were too busy to be aware of it.

”Are you dressing up for me?” Adam quipped at the zomb-human, he still caught himself even now, whirlwind that was Mara as she handed him the small, silver flask and quickly walked off trying to put on a pair of high-heeled sandals while walking with one hand and slip on an earring with the other.

”You know you are not worth this effort. I have a date, well a date and a celebration.”

”Celebration?” Adam walked through the kitchen and into the sitting room and took his armchair, the brown leather creaking under his movement. It wasn’t his obviously but it was the one he always chose. One time Mara had let him in and she’d taken it on purpose and timed in her mind how long it had taken Adam to complain while he’d stood awkwardly. One hundred and eleven seconds.

Mara came back in the room with her makeup bag in one hand and a mirror in the other and sat on her burgundy sofa. The contents of the bag and the mirror were scattered on the coffee table that separated her from Adam and she spoke while applying eyeshadow. “I finished my first module,” Mara beamed having finally earned enough money to start her studies. “And Owen is taking me for dinner.”

”Your ex-husband Owen?”

”Yes Adam, my ex husband Owen,” Mara said with an air of ‘leave it alone’. Which Adam ignored. Obviously.

”The same Owen who took out a secured loan on the house you both owned in secret to help his garage and then lost the both of them?” Adam had known very little about things like loans at the time; he knew enough of modern life to navigate himself well and without arousing notice but he’d never needed to learn about mortgages and loan with his wealth.

”People change, Adam. We were young and stupid and it was over a decade ago.”

”Zombies don’t,” Adam returned. This was the second time he broke his promise, the first had been six months after his new arrangement had began and Mara had thrown him out and refused to see him for two months. He’d ended up breaking the flask he had at the time to lick every single speck of blood. And the following month when he’d turned up, desperate, Mara had greeted him as if nothing had occurred. Adam found the first kernel of what had grown into a friendship had started in that moment.

”You have what you came for and I’m busy Adam. Can you see yourself out please, I’ll see you next month,” she stood up and blinked the wetness from her eyes rapidly. Mara shut the bedroom door once inside it and sat on the edge of her bed, feeling deflated. “Fucker,” she cursed under her breath, knowing Adam would hear anyway. A moment later her front door closed.

He was a fucker, he agreed to himself as he sat in his car across the road from the house and removed his gloves now he was back in his own space. He stood by his assessment, if anyone was a zombie it was Mara’s ex husband. And he would be a shit as well as a fucker if he drove away now. That’s what Adam told himself waiting past eight, then nine and finally just before ten getting out of the vintage sports car with a sigh, slipping his gloves back onto his fingers as he crossed the road and rang Mara’s doorbell for the second time that night.

”You better have a damn good expla-“ Mara’s annoyed voice cut short as she opened the door and saw not Owen but Adam. “What do you want?” her tone was flat and the sparkle that had been in her voice when she greeted him before was definitely gone.

”I waited.”

“Well then I guess we both had a wasted evening, huh.” Mara didn’t move to let him past the way she would have by now.

”Can I come in?”

”No. I rescind your invitation.”

”You know that Hollywood bullshit doesn’t work,” Adam rolled his eyes.

”I didn’t mean it in a vampire way, I was telling you to fuck off.”

”No,” he stepped closer, leaving the gap between them uncomfortable so Mara had no choice but to step back and when she did he slipped inside, manoeuvring around her like a cat.

With a sigh Mara closed the door and padded back to the sofa, the heels from earlier had been long kicked off. Once on the sofa she brought up her legs to her knees and pulled the blanket that she’d pulled from the back of the couch earlier over herself.

”Your house feels cold?” Adam wasn’t any more bothered by the lack of central heating than he was by any other weather or temperature - apart from the sun.

”Didn’t make sense to waste money keeping the house warm when I was due out,” Mara responded and Adam took a deep breath that he didn’t need and sat beside Mara, putting his arm around her shoulders and breaking his streak of keeping his distance from everyone. And while her body didn’t protest she still said, “stop being nice. It’s not like you,” Mara complained and Adam gave a small bark of a laugh. Mara laughed too which turned into a sob and that was Adam’s undoing. The tears streaming down her cheeks rained over his gloved hand, and found their way to his skin from the decorative holes at the knuckles. The depth of emotion that slammed through him was a punch to the gut and the air he hadn’t needed to breathe in before came exhaling out with a loud puff. Adam knew what it was to love even if the memory was hazy and one he hadn’t expected to feel again, and Adam knew what it felt to be loved - what he hadn’t known is how it felt to see himself being loved through someone else’s eyes until then. More surprising still was to find how the feelings she held he matched equally, apparently knowing something and admitting it to yourself wasn’t quite the same. Adam processed it the only way he knew how, by getting mad only instead of at someone else as was his MO this time at himself for being a fucking idiot. He didn’t have time to deal with being angry though, instead he twisted Mara to face him better and brought his face down to hers.   
  


“Mara, Mara, Mara,” Adam said reverently between kisses. “You are a liar.” Normal people, who were already having a bit of a day first with a no-show date, who happened to be their ex husband, then finding themselves being kissed by their vampire friend who had pissed them off earlier didn’t take kindly to being insulted and she was no exception. With a hand on his chest she dislodged herself from Adam and with an angry frown asked him how was she a liar. “You never told me you wanted this,” Adam replied simply and tried to kiss her again, making a noise of frustration when her hand stayed in his way.

“Told you what? I..you...look Adam you kissed me!” Trying to hold a logical conversation with an illogical vampire was something she was frequently used to but that made it no easier. Usually there wasn’t kissing involved, that was distracting.

Adam hated and desired all the myriad of emotions that came with his touch of another living being; he found it unpleasantly overwhelming and intoxicatingly addictive and therefore steered clear. Before. He was certain he would be arranging his mind with that word for some time. “You lied about this, or at least you never said. Which is essentially a lie,” her hand stopped him kissing her face but with a small turn of his own he dropped to his knees on the floor beside the couch and his lips met Mara’s neck.

”A-Adam,” Mara said haltingly in a semi moan and tried to gather her thoughts. “That’s not what a lie is, if it were you would be the king of them now stop doing that. Wait no don’t stop doing that,” she complained when Adam slowed down. “And I don’t know what you mean, you kissed me,” she stated again.

”You love me,” he murmured right against her pulse, his tongue stroking it while ignoring her accusation.

“What do you call this then?” Mara’s skin felt too sensitised and she twisted her head so their foreheads touched, eyes closed still from this very scary question.

”Loving you back,” Adam whispered, his hands tugging the gloves he still had on off.


End file.
